Introducing Echo Buttons, a new way to play games through your compatible Echo device

Each button illuminates and can be pressed to trigger a variety of play experiences powered by Alexa

Bring back game night with a catalog of compatible Alexa Skills such as Trivial Pursuit Tap by Hasbro, Beat the Intro, Button Monte, and Sounds Fun with Mike Epps. Just ask "Alexa, what games can I play with my Echo Buttons?"

Echo Plus with built-in Hub – Silver

Ships from and sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC.
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Color:
Silver

Configuration:
Echo Plus

Echo Plus is a simple way to start your smart home. It has a built-in ZigBee smart home hub, which allows for simple and direct setup of compatible ZigBee lights, locks, plugs, and in-wall switches from brands like Philips Hue, GE, and Yale. No additional hub required.

Just ask for a song, artist, or genre from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, and more. With multi-room music, you can play music on your Echo devices in different rooms. Echo Plus can also play audiobooks, radio stations, news briefs, and more.

Call or message almost anyone hands-free with your Echo device. Also, instantly connect to other Echo devices in your home using just your voice.

Set up your smart home in minutes

Echo Plus is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice, with a built-in smart home hub. It connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, ask questions, make calls, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask.

Echo Plus has 360° room-filling sound powered by Dolby, and can hear you from across the room from any direction. It is always getting smarter as Alexa continues to add additional features. With a built-in smart home hub and simple setup for compatible connected devices, starting your smart home or integrating into your existing system is now easier than ever.

The simple way to start your smart home

Echo Plus has a built-in hub that seamlessly connects and controls compatible smart devices such as light bulbs, door locks, switches, and plugs. Setting up new smart home devices with Alexa is easy. Just say “Alexa, discover my devices” and Echo Plus will discover and set up compatible smart home devices.

Switch on the lamp before getting out of bed or turn on the coffee maker without lifting a finger. Control multiple devices at scheduled times or with a single voice command, like locking the doors and turning off the lights when you go to bed. Simple setup works with a variety of ZigBee lights, locks, and plugs from leading brands such as Philips Hue, GE, Kwikset, and more.

Like other Echo devices, Echo Plus can connect to other Wi-Fi and Bluetooth smart home devices with the Alexa app. Control lights, outlets, TVs, thermostats, and more from WeMo, TP-Link, Sony, Insteon, ecobee, and others.

Control hundreds of devices

With a 2.5” downward-firing woofer and 0.8” tweeter powered by Dolby, Echo Plus has crisp highs, deep bass, and 360° audio to fill your room with music. Play from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more. You can also listen to audiobooks from Audible, podcasts, radio stations, news briefs, and more.

Want to play music on an Echo in another room? Now with multi-room music, you can tell Alexa to play across your compatible Echo devices. Tell Alexa to play jazz in the office, soundtracks in the family room, or play the same song across your whole house. Learn more

With Echo Plus, you can talk to almost anyone hands-free—no tapping or searching required. Your contacts will see your number when they receive the call so they know who is calling. Set up your voice profile and teach Alexa to recognize your voice. When you say, “Alexa, call Mom”, Alexa will call your mom, even if you have multiple users in your home. Additionally, you can send messages via voice or text to anyone with a supported Echo device or the Alexa App.

With the Drop In feature enabled for room-to-room calling, instantly connect with compatible Echo devices in your home. Let your household know when dinner is ready, ask someone for help with a chore, or remind the kids to go to sleep—without having to raise your voice.

Tucked under the light ring is an array of seven microphones that use beamforming technology and enhanced noise cancellation. Echo Plus has improved wake-word performance to hear you ask a question from any direction—even in noisy environments or while playing music at loud volumes.

When you want to use Echo Plus, simply say the wake word, “Alexa,” and Echo Plus lights up and connects to the cloud, where the Alexa Voice Service recognizes and responds to your request instantly. Learn more about voice recognition on Echo.

Echo Plus uses tens of thousands of skills and counting. Ask about your daily commute, control your Sony smart TV, play Jeopardy!, check your account balance with American Express, and more. To enable a new skill, just ask Alexa.

New skills are being added all the time. You can also see ratings and reviews to learn what other customers are saying about the skills available in the Alexa App.

Get even more from Echo Plus with Prime and enjoy ad-free streaming of over 2 million songs with Prime Music.

You can also order millions of products using only your voice and gain access to weekly Alexa shopping deals. All voice orders include fast, free shipping, and Alexa can even track your delivery for you. Learn more.

Alexa is always getting smarter—the more you use Echo, the more Alexa adapts to your speech patterns, vocabulary, and personal preferences. And because Echo is always connected, updates are delivered automatically.

Just in the last few months we’ve added Alexa calling and messaging, multi-room music, voice profiles, and reminders, along with skills from third-party developers.

Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) support for audio streaming from your mobile device to Echo or from Echo to your Bluetooth speaker. Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) for voice control of connected mobile devices. Hands-free voice control is not supported for Mac OS X devices. Bluetooth speakers requiring PIN codes are not supported.

If you already have an Echo, I'm not sure there much, or any reason to upgrade to this new echo. First, for those people buying this Echo in order to get rid of your current hubs, that may or may not be possible. If you have a Hue hub, this Echo Plus is not a direct replacement for it. In addition to bulbs, the Hue hub supports motion sensors, dimmer switches, and tap switches. It also supports Apple Homekit. If you deregister your Hue peripherals from the Hue hub, and try and connect them to the Echo Plus, while the bulbs will connect, the motion sensors and dimmer switches will not. Also, you will lose Apple Homekit support. You will also lose all the automations the Hue hub supports like sunrise to sunset and other automation. Also, if your internet goes out, your Hue hub will continue to work and you will be able to control your lights with the Hue app. If your internet goes out, the Echo Plus will not be able to control your lights by voice, or the Alexa app. Lastly, all the 3rd party Hue apps are designed to work with the Hue bridge, not the Echo Plus. So, those apps will also not work.

If your current hub is Z-Wave, then the Echo Plus will also not be a direct replacement for it. You will need to keep that hub as well the Echo Plus does not have a Z-Wave radio in it. If you want to do simple things like turn a ZigBee bulb on and off, and dim it, then the Echo Plus works fine. If you want to do more complicated scenarios, then you will need to keep, or buy a another hub. Since Zigbee is the only protocol that is supported at this time, you need to look for light bulbs, and some other peripherals, that use that protocol in order for it work with the Echo Plus. But with that said, there will be some devices that use Zigbee that will still need their manufactures hub to work. So, again, it will not be as simple as looking for a ZigBee device and expecting it work with the Echo Plus. Since there is currently no supported list of devices, trial and error is going to be your best bet in trying to figure out which ZigBee devices work with the Echo Plus and which do not.

As for sound, that part if more subjective. I like a little more base in my music. The Echo Plus sacrifices bass for treble in this new design. So, to me, it does not sound as great as the previous Echo. To me, it sounds a little flat. My old Echo sounds much richer and fuller than the Plus. So, if you like your music with more bass, then you might be disappointed here as well.

Apart from the above, the Echo Plus does everything the old Echo does, so I'm not going to repeat everything here as you can read about those features in reviews of the last generation Echo. The microphones on the Echo Plus seems more sensitive to the previous generation though. It appears to be able to hear me more, even when the music is turned out loud. Where the old Echo had issues doing that. Also, the Plus has a 3.5 mm audio jack. Therefore, you can more easily connect it to your stereo, external speakers, etc. with a wire, if Bluetooth is not an option.

So, all in all, the Echo Plus is good device, but I don't think it's that much better than the previous generation to warrant an upgrade. If an upgrade is wanted, then depending on you hub needs, the smaller newer Echo might be the better choice. If you are new to the smart home arena, then try and figure out what you want your smart home to do, then pick the best system(s) that get you want you want. Don't assume the Echo Plus will solve all your smart home needs.

I am a long time user of Echo and eagerly awaited the successors. The Echo Plus is no such thing.

Please note that many high star reviews are first time echo owners and they don't have the original good unit to compare too. If you are too and reading this, buy the original Echo for around 80$ (not the second gen). If you are a previous echo owner, don't "upgrade".

First and foremost, the sound. Despite being touted as having updated speakers and Dolby, it sounds much worse. Volume does not get as high, bass is always too low, and just sounds muffled. If you have a Dot, then it is comparable to sound quality but just louder. My wife asked what was wrong with it (she didn't know it was the Plus). That was one of the main reasons I got the new Echo, an upgrade to the sound.

The speech recognition is about the same. Maybe bit better but I think that's because this Echo does not get as loud and not as much bass interference as the old one.

Connecting smart devices is about as painful as before, just in a new way. It does basic commands and for basic devices. Very limited. You are better off with a hidden, more powerful hub.

Other than that, it looks almost exactly the same as old Echo, and does same things. Connecting my phone via bluetooth was useless. The new power plug in port is not hidden like the original and cord comes out easily.

I decided to upgrade tom the new Echo Plus. I am returning it. the inclusion of the hub saves nothing in setup and doesn't work as well as the original. My smart devices are two Wemo plugs, A Harmony Elite Hub, and three first gen Phillips hue Color BR30 bulbs and a first gen hub. After receiving the Echo Plus I followed the initial directions for connecting the New Echo hub to my lights. It would not recognize them. Spent 1 hour trying all sorts of thing with no luck. I then spent 2 hours on the phone with tech support. After being passed to 4 different people, still no connection to the bulbs. Spent another hour putting the system back to original functionality. Decided to send it back.

After a couple of days of research, I found that the Alexa web app cannot configure Hue lights that have been previously hooked to a hub. Buried in the phone app there is a way to reset the lights to the factory settings. I decided to try and configure the Echo Plus again. after obtaining the light serial number, I finally got the Echo to find the lights. But here is the rub, you cannot configure the lights with scenes, you can only ask it to color the lights to a set choice of colors. There is no way in the app to set the lights to a specific custom color and intensity. This is less functionality than I had with the original echo and the Phillips hub.. The commands are also more verbose. You have to say "Alexa set the color of the fireplace to blue". With the Phillips hub and IFTTT you say " Alexa trigger Ocean" or whatever scene with the custom color/intensity combination you have created.

For me the new Echo Plus was not and upgrade to my current smarthome configuration. The setup was more complicated, and not as versatile as the original, and the tech support people have no clue about the proper steps for configuration to even get the less funtional system to work. The inability of the app to create scenes and allow custom light colors and intensities is a signigicant flaw. I had enabled the Hue app hoping it would get the scenes from my hue account but without the hub connected, the app does nothing. As a result, I am returning the Echo Plus and staying with my original Echo and two Echo Dots.